VIACOM, YOUTUBE FINALLY SETTLE SUIT: Remember that billion dollar lawsuit Viacom filed against Google over alleged copyright violations on YouTube back in 2007? The one you probably thought had settled years ago? Well, actually, the companies announced they had finally settled on Tuesday, almost exactly seven years later. And get this, no cash changed hands, reports The Wall Street Journal. Viacom does look like it’s on track for an advertising technology partnership with Google–the kind of arrangement that was tough to pull off while the companies were thrashing it out in court. One wonders what such an ad-tech deal could look like. Are ads for MTV.com going to get preferential treatment in Google’s ad exchange? Is Google going to help Viacom sell ads within video-on-demand content, or within its connected TV apps? One thing seems for certain. Viacom doesn’t seem to be rushing to push more content on YouTube, despite its young, MTV-compatible audience. Viacom seems content on keeping most of its content on its own properties–its linear networks, its websites, its apps. It will be interesting to see where the two longtime combatants find common ground.

GOOGLE ON YOUR WRIST: Google owns search on the desktop Web. As more and more people access the Web via mobile devices, the company is angling to make sure it’s just as indispensable in helping people navigate the mobile Web. And now, as wearable technology approaches reality, Google is looking to make sure it plays a central role in helping you find stuff there too–whether you’re searching on a Web-connected device that rests on your wrist, your glasses, your ear, whatever. More in the full post. Read More »

NBC’S GREENBLATT BETTING ON “BIG EVENTS”: NBC entertainment chief, Bob Greenblatt, admits that turning around the struggling fourth-place network hasn’t been easy, but he is hoping a string of serialized, mini-series-styled shows helps put NBC on a new trajectory, reports WSJ. Call it Must-See Event TV (not to be confused with the recent NBC alien invasion dud, “The Event”). In the works are the new J.J. Abrams mystical drama “Believe,” which is off to a good start, the hostage-themed “Crisis,” and the ripped-from-the-Bible “A.D.” More in the full post. Read More »

Autoplay Starts To Play on Social Network: Facebook’s “autoplay” video ads will start showing up in late April, Adweek reports, citing a Facebook rep. The much hyped ad product, which has been repeatedly delayed, starts working whenever a Facebook user scrolls over the ad units – although the sound doesn’t come on unless the user clicks on them, the story said. Facebook will work with Nielsen, with whom it already has a relationship, to measure audiences – something that will cheer marketers, who have been looking for online formats comparable to television. Whether Facebook’s users are so happy, though, is another – and much bigger – question. Read More »

TWITTER’S BOT PROBLEM: The online advertising world has been rocked by charges of prevalent fraud. All sorts of researchers have issued reports claiming that large portions of Web traffic does not come from humans, but from “bots,” i.e. programs operated by bad guys looking to fake traffic and rip off advertisers in the process. Typically, those charges have been limited to the fringes of the Web, though some big name digital media companies have been affected. Now, a really big one has a really big problem. Twitter has been infected by a botnet, reports Business Insider, which may affect millions of accounts. Twitter already has had issues with fake accounts. A botnet generating lots of bogus activity on the site is not welcome news, considering that in its recent earnings reports, it was clear that Twitter had a lot of work to do when it comes to user growth. Safe to say executives at the social media company are looking for real actual users.

THE DODGERS MAY BE TOO EXPENSIVE FOR CABLE: Game on: Here comes the biggest battle yet over the price of regional sports TV networks. Pay-TV distributors are balking at carrying SportsNet LA, a new network that will air Los Angeles Dodgers games and other content related to the baseball club, WSJ reports. That’s because SportsNet LA is asking for the biggest subscriber fees ever for a regional network of its kind (starting at $4), and so far, no cable providers in L.A. besides Time Warner Cable are biting. Standoffs like this have happened before, but this one feels bigger–as more and more consumers and advocate groups have been railing about how sports prices are almost solely responsible for driving cable bills up. It will be interesting to see who blinks, as the Dodgers season starts on March 30. Fans usually blame their cable company when they can’t get what they want. Read More »

Battery-life panic disorder. You won’t find it in any medical textbook, but I assure you, when a smartphone’s battery indicator turns red, the corresponding feeling of complete powerlessness is real.

I used to suffer quite badly from it, sitting on dirty floors as my phone charged at whatever power plug that happened to be available. But I’ve since found relief: iPhone and Android phone cases that can double your battery life.

These external battery cases may bring relief, but it’s a brutish and insufficient kind, like curing a headache with an electric drill or repairing a broken window with planks of scavenged wood.

THE TRAVOLTIFY EFFECT AND DIGITAL NEWS: In case you missed it, John Travolta seriously botched an Oscar-winner singer’s name the other night–which became an instant Internet meme. Folks everywhere were ‘Travoltifying’ their names via silly web games that rearranged the letters in their real names. The typically serious-minded Slate jumped in on the movement, echoing Time.com’s recent Facebook Quiz and even WSJ.com’s interactive SAT score ranker from Wednesday. The New York Times has taken an interesting look at the ‘gamification’ of digital news, and what it means for the future of the business. “Whether they like it or not,” reads the piece, “in these tough times news organizations are prepared to take advantage of a strategy that allows them to charge more for advertising.”

FLIPBOARD GRABS CNN’S ZITE: Twitter was buzzing Wednesday with the news that just three years after CNN had grabbed Zite, a fast growing tablet news aggregator, it was selling the company to Flipboard, the well-funded leader in the space. While CNN looked to spin the deal as a forward-looking and innovative, the company had touted Zite as the future of personalized news back in 2011. Whether CNN made or lost money is unclear, as reports had Zite’s price tag all over the map. But the obvious question is, did something just not work out between Zite and CNN? Or, as ZDNet reports, could this be a power play for Flipboard, as it looks to take on Facebook’s own digital reading app, Facebook Paper?

YAHOO BOUNCES FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE LOGINS: A few years ago, Yahoo and AOL, realizing they’d lost out on the exploding social media phenomenon, started to take on a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” strategy. They began touting the idea that users could integrate their social networking and email and other communications tools on AOL and Yahoo. More in full post. Read More »

GOOGLE FIBER: Google is considering plans to expand its fiber network to nine additional metroareas, in a move representing a renewed threat to cable companies that dominate the local market for broadband, WSJ reports. Google’s aspirations in offering fiber aren’t completely clear, but the news nonetheless sent cable stocks down in afternoon trading Wednesday, and led at least one analyst to speculate that fiber could be a profitable business for Google within five years. Google’s plans could be further bolstered by new indications Wednesday that the F.C.C. is likely to encourage towns and cities to build their own broadband networks, in hopes of encouraging competition for broadband service.

STARTUP FEVER: Facebook agreed to buy the mobile messaging app WhatsAppfor $19 billion in cash and stock, in a deal easily exceeding the prices other startups have commanded through sales to corporate owners, WSJ reports. The deal is a huge windfall not just for the app’s founders but also Sequoia Capital, which invested $60 million for a stake valued at up to $3 billion in the deal, the story notes. For the uninitiated, WhatsApp is already a hugely popular texting service, with around 450 million monthly uses. (Twitter, by comparison, has 240 million users.) Still unclear is how much money the service is making, given it carries no ads and charges just 99 cents after a first year of use for free. But the service has other appeal to Facebook: helping expand its reach to international users and insulating it from the changing usage habits of teens, some of whom have grown cool in Facebook, the story notes. More from Bloomberg and Re/code. Read More »

Why is Facebook buying WhatsApp for $19 billion? At this very moment, I am looking at a text file showing me 5,600 possible explanations. That’s how many WhatsApp messages were exchanged between me and a friend in a single three-month period of 2012, when we were averaging about 60 back-and-forth messages a day.

It was probably a time of above-average communication — and the messages were with a woman of great beauty and conversational smarts, so I had my reasons — but it is still a useful window into how instant messaging sits right at the heart of the battle for attention that now dominates the technology industry. Skimming over those messages — from the breezy rituals of good mornings and how are yous to hour-long heart-to-hearts — shows how our phones are still fundamentally communicators, and how chatting, like everything else, is now facilitated by apps.

MEGA MERGER: Comcast has agreed to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion in stock, in an agreement that will almost certainly derail efforts by Charter Communications to acquire Time Warner Cable and that cements Comcast’s role as the country’s largest cable operator, WSJ reports. Comcast and Charter had been discussing partnering up to buy Time Warner Cable, but Comcast opted to go alone–something Time Warner Cable always preferred. Comcast, which is already the country’s largest cable operator in terms of subscribers and owns NBCUniversal, faces stiff hurdles in getting the deal approved by regulators. Comcast is this morning preparing several rounds of conference calls with analysts and the media to discuss the deal. More in the full post. Read More »

BREAKING: Time Warner Inc. reported a 12% profit decline for the fourth quarter, due to higher programming costs and writedowns, missing Wall Street’s expectations. And for the first time, Time Warner detailed the financial performance of HBO, in what looks like an attempt to better quantify the premium channel’s status as a big money maker. Amid renewed competition from Netflix, the numbers show that HBO earned an operating profit of $1.8 billion for 2013, including $413 million for the fourth quarter. That compares with a scant $48.4 million in profits reported by Netflix for the fourth quarter last month, despite a major uptick in the streaming service’s subscriber count.

OLYMPICS: With the Winter Olympics set to begin this Thursday in Sochi, the pressure is on NBCUniversal to turn its telecast of the games into a ratings as well as financial success, WSJ notes. More in the full post. Read More »